RE: Does this Bible verse imply Paul of Tarsus wanted to outlaw atheism?

PPS. What the hell, here's my spiel about the same sort of nonsense in Acts...

"The author introduced Stephen as having a minor role in the community - someone who distributed food to widows while the apostles went about the more important task of evangelizing. Yet Stephen was soon portrayed as a man of more importance:

“Stephen was filled with grace and power and began to work miracles and great signs among the people” (Acts 6:8, NJB.)

The term “the Jews,” with a negative connotation, was introduced. Stephen successfully debated “the Jews” from synagogues outside Jerusalem, so he was being used to represent Gentile Christianity.

Pharisees denounced Stephen, and he was put on trial before the Sanhedrin. They accused him of being an agitator. In a long speech in Acts 7, an angel-faced Christian Stephen claimed the Jewish Law had now lost its relevance, as it had been replaced by faith in Christ. He delivered an ominous charge; the Jews had betrayed and killed Christ, just as their ancestors had killed earlier prophets:

“Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it. When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:51–56 KJV.)

The confident Christian Stephen openly slandered Jews by saying they’d always got things wrong, and that they’d killed Jesus. To add some color and weight to the argument, Jesus then appeared in the clouds next to Yahweh, just to prove how correct Stephen was, but the belligerent Jews never noticed the dynamic duo. They were so steamed up they stoned Stephen:

“At this all the members of the council shouted out and stopped their ears with their hands; then they all rushed at him, sent him out of the city and stoned him” (Acts 7:57–58, NJB.)

So the obstinate, deluded, teeth-gnashing, Christ-murdering Jews were pitched against Stephen, the angel-faced Christian apologist. Jewish beliefs were portrayed as incorrect and out-dated, and Jews as inflexible, angry, and aggressive when a Christian criticised them for their faults. Those stubborn Jews were so headstrong they never even noticed Yahweh had a newly invented son, Jesus. Christianity, the new kid on the block, was now the real religion. It had found its voice, then rejected its roots, just like an opinionated adolescent who despises his deluded old dad."